


Cor cordium

by Flatfootmonster



Series: FFM's CMBYN Therapy [1]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Elio POV, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Fooling Around, Forgiveness, Love, M/M, Oliver pov, POV Multiple, Post-Book(s), Reconciliation, Reflection, Self-Reflection, Sharing a Bed, interruptions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-03 06:37:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13335540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flatfootmonster/pseuds/Flatfootmonster
Summary: “Oliver.” I whisper.And the years are worth it and the separation, to have this and to return and with one word cause love to bloom in your eyes, to see it seep into your face, to watch your lips part as a delicate and greedy need is fulfilled by one word and one word alone.We would have been so happy together with just simplicity, love and understanding for company, wouldn't we? And that's all we have now, so…





	1. Returned

**Author's Note:**

> I may have become obsessed with CMBYN. I don't care it's amazing... I tortured myself by pulling it apart and analysing it to find the silver lining. Elio is not staying in a damn coma (for those of you that haven't read the book that is purely metaphoric).
> 
> So, this takes parts from both the book and the film, although it follows on directly from the ending of the book, if you don't want that spoiled stop reading now! Gone? Good. For those of you that haven't read the book but still want to go on: Oliver has a family and they (E&O) meet once in New England and there is a phone call, then Oliver stops by 20 years after the summer it all began because he is "travelling through" *side eye*... anyway, it is left open ended on how they part, or if they in fact do.
> 
> Forever the optimist with a heart that feels stuff from time to time I decided to go from that point and in Oliver's POV (which I want so damn bad.)
> 
> Enjoy! Becs <3  
> (Jo, if you're reading this, I stole something from you. I wonder if you will spot it.)

The first thing that I needed to accept was that I wasn’t looking to replace. It never could be replaced. It would never be forgotten, diluted or faded. It was perhaps the most real thing that I ever knew, that I would ever know. 

_ Elio, Elio, Elio. _

I would hear the whispers, sometimes I would conjure them and sometimes they would materialise of their own accord. Sometimes I thought perhaps he had willed them, from wherever he was on this planet. That he had sent them to me on a thought, a memory. The need burns in me for those recollections to be happy.  _ Happy? _ No, I wish them to be full and sincere and accurate, as are mine. Does he remember those peaks in thrill and exhilaration in fine detail? I want for those hurts to be the lesser, somehow the background to the masterpiece. Or the foreground. Which is more important? One cannot be without the other, I know this much at least. My final hope is that the frame those memories sit in is gilded; precious. My own lay behind red ropes, in an exhibition for my eyes alone. My eyes that seem to view the world now through a heat haze. Something stops me from focusing properly anymore. Oh, I get by and I succeed but I have to fight that distortion to claim every moment that I want to claim and hold it in a special place. In a separate wing of my gallery.

_ Elio, Elio, Elio. _

And sometimes I answer.

“Oliver, Oliver, Oliver.” Out of nowhere. 

Sometimes I will be on my own, in the shower or the kitchen or in bed. Sometimes I am not alone. I am at dinner or I’m in the lounge or I am  _ anywhere _ . It has come to be perceived as a strange habit unique to  _ Oliver  _ or  _ Daddy _ . People laugh at it, I’m sure they think it is narcissistic in nature. A part of me is relieved that they think that, that we decided to call each other by our own names, that my secrets aren’t sold on my breath by accident. Moreso, my fingers tighten their grip, my jaw firms at the fact that they  _ don’t _ know, that I  _ do not _ say his name, that I'm  _ not _ asked  _ “Who is Elio, honey?”,  _ then I can speak of him and I can unfold the map of my treasured secrets and point to where X marks the spot, I can watch the reaction as devastating as a bomb explode at the truth of me. At the very truth of my heart. Those whispers remain, however, that single bridge between this world and that parallel. A bridge that only I can see when it appears on the edge of the mist of this life.

_ Do you hear it, Elio? When I reply? _

I try not to let my mind wonder, I keep myself from comparing textures and tastes and tones. I won’t find it again in anyone else. The feeling of his skin beneath my palm was a thing of myth, except I know it is not. Goosebumps that scaled the form where my fingers would trace, a metamorphosis, a new skin, the  _ honest  _ skin of ourselves. Bared for each other and each other alone. 

Did you know I never slept easily when your body was pressed to mine, Elio? I couldn’t sleep when your own slumber settled in your bones. Did you feel me study you, even in your unconscious state? I would watch you and feel the atoms that buzzed beneath your skin, I would memorise the graceful flow intercepted by the hard lines of your form. You.  _ You  _ who put sculptures, crafted to be desired by all whose eyes befell them but whom sat in silent envy in your presence, to shame. When you’d lay next to me, in our solace, your chest rose and fell and its effect was greater than the tide. Each wave eroded a part of my soul and you claimed it, stole it as the air rushed back into your blessed lungs; part of me  _ always  _ flows through you. Those waves let me know I was alive. I would doubt it then in the dark and quiet, your skin mystically absorbed whatever light was granted by the moon. An aura to match your ethereal nature, you  _ shone _ . And I didn’t deserve it, I didn’t deserve you. The stillness and wonder had me question whether I existed at all; that this couldn’t possibly be within the realms of reality that I had lived within. But then a breeze would wander through the window and it would move through your hair. Those strands would brush against my skin, like I was your canvas and you were creating an impressionist masterpiece. I would remember to breathe and with that breath I would know I was living because you made my body sing. Like the way your fingers would move over ivory or string, the mere movement of you against me made a song more beautiful than the cicadas and the sea and the sun rise all together. I couldn’t help it then, I would move my fingers through your hair like the breeze had. You would sigh or murmur, sometimes you would smile. The strands were silk but they ran through my fingers like the sands of time. 

_ Time _ . 

I tried so hard not to measure it. Now measurements of time are all I have: how long it has been since I last saw you, since I last heard your voice, how many hours we spent together, how many hours we wasted apart. 

I can’t complain about what I have had and I won’t. I fall on my feet with what feels like little say in the matter, I have become what was expected; fulfilled my obligations. There is happiness and there are foundations, there are roots and there is life. I can go so long, Elio, without thinking of you. Not because I don’t care to. I navigate through my life and it compiles and compacts on me and it becomes reality and I  _ think  _ that I have managed it. That I have created this world that I know myself within, that I know my place in. But then you come, Elio, in so many different forms. Whether it is your voice carried on the breeze or the glimpse of a profile that I mistake as your own before I notice,  _ no _ , the nose is too large, or,  _ no _ , the lips are not full enough. Then you pour into the cracks that I forgot were there, soothing and stinging as you make your presence known. My world tips on its axis and I doubt everything that I know. I am left spinning and reeling and reaching for you. Just one touch. But it could never be just one touch. 

When you would come to me I would be left disorientated for days, I would look at maps searching for the pinpoint that I willed to appear to show me where you were. If I  _ knew  _ where you were that would be some comfort, I could guess, but to  _ know _ . I wanted to know. And once I assumed I knew where you were, I would find myself pondering how much plane tickets would cost or whether there was a need to travel, my mind would condure copious excuses to find you. There was one bright spring day that I found myself parked at the airport, watching the planes make their paths across that vivid sky with the freedom to move directly to where they wanted to be. Where they  _ needed _ to be. I don’t know how long I sat there, with my passport in my back pocket and nothing else, but the sky was a hopeless black and the aircrafts taunted me with their lights by the time I reluctantly turned the key in the ignition.

I know myself, Elio. You knew what that meant. If I came, I could not have left it at that. 

Those immeasurable days of longing drove me to submerge myself in a study of you. Of what I could find. I knew you saw it, by your expression when you were in my office and bewildered by what I knew. What people I worked with knew of you. Within me, I felt pleasure that I could surprise you in a way I hoped would taste as sweet as freshly pressed nectarines, and then acute pain descended as I realised that you had assumed I’d buried you and forgotten your clandestine grave. That could never be. 

Did you forget me at times, Elio? I could imagine you hastily pushing our memories to the back of the dusty, forgotten wardrobe in your grandfather's room, shutting the doors firmly with that passion—misdirected to futile stubbornness—and folding you arms across your chest before you’d throw yourself hard into your mattress. I smile at the thought of those memories finding ancient cracks in the aged wood, reaching out like tendrils of the sun and bleeding into our room mere hours after you thought you were safe from them. They would fall across your body like a soft touch and push my life firmly into yours again. I knew if it would never leave me, it would never leave you. Would you feel anguish at those intrusions, or anger? Did you let yourself enjoy them? 

Too many things went to die in that room Elio, we won’t be one of them. 

I tried to keep my version of events clean of shame. It wasn’t hard because of all the things I have and have not done in my life—and that I have come to question—I harbour no regrets about our time together. I would do it all again, with that second chance, and in a heartbeat. The only guilt is transpired by the immense amount of pleasure that I get when our moments are relived and the inevitable lies are conjured to explain my wistful gaze from the window, while a deep and aching smile carves its way into my cheeks.

I want to tell you that I don’t eat soft boiled eggs. I can’t bear to learn to open them myself, or to have someone attempt it that isn’t you. I could never see a peach as a simple fruit, no less than I can eat one that someone else presents me with. It is a pact between us, you and I. Ground only I can traverse alone but not on my own, never lonely with your ghost that dances through my blood. 

I want to tell you that I’m sorry, when I stood in your house and you were far away but only your voice crackled through the telephone receiver. You didn’t see my eyes squeeze shut when you whispered “ _ Elio” _ . It was so close, being there, in heaven, with your family and mine. All but you so painfully absent. In my mind’s eye I could see your lips move around your own name as you passed it to me, waiting for this simple act of supplication to be returned. I didn’t return it and it hurt, the same way it hurt you. Most of that anguish was due to the sensation of one simple word tearing my flesh asunder, it was a power I had never felt before. You moved me again and I forgot where I was, only one thread tethered me there and if it had snapped a dam would have burst. It would have been catastrophic; something I was both terrified of and fantasized about.

I don’t know what I expected. Just like before, perhaps I was waiting for you. For you to find your courage and break your silence and find me to demand what was rightfully ours. Although that was never your way, there was so much beauty in your notion that no one belonged to another. I knew it in the way you clumsily tried to matchmake and in your well wishes for my marriage. They were genuine in their motives, your words. You never saw anyone or yourself being anyone else’s, and yet still we belong to one another needing no physical or written bindings. And now it becomes, and now I am the knight, so entrenched by life that I don’t know how to speak. I don’t know how I’m able to move anymore, the armor is so heavy.

_ To speak or to die _ .

And if you did come, Elio, I don't know what I would have said or felt, the fallout may have devastated everything, even us. Maybe you knew, maybe fate knew this was how it was supposed to be. Maybe you are fate,  _ my  _ fate. And if you are fate, then I am free will. But none of that matters, not now where these two parallels converge and collide. I know I can’t keep those worlds apart anymore. Even Atlas was only given one to hold. 

I decided I could not die without seeing you again. I needed to, when you told me that I would be the only one you wished to say your final farewell to before the veil descends on this existence. That I am the only person that would define the difference between this life and the next. That you could not bear to hear of my demise in a letter from one of my children. The words rang true in me as soon as they were said, they moulded a need and sharpened my heart with a keen hand and a whet stone.

I’ve worried and simmered since that time. I cannot let those words be and I cannot ignore that these bridges appear more frequently because my feet move towards them now, before I can tell them that I know myself; my mantra that has slowly evolved into a question. 

But I feel like I don’t know myself anymore, Elio. 

That’s why I came. I know I will find the thing that’s missing here with you, reflected in your face. I found it shockingly quick: as the gate squeaked on its hinges, as we walked and talked on ground that was always parched. A unique embroidery that held the seams of my soul together was uncovered, the dust blown from them and a tender finger ran over silken threads fondly. A warmth is stirred in my bones that isn’t just due to the heat of the sun or the baked stone wall against my back. My eyes trace the lines of  _ your  _ home, knowing so intimately the space within and the vivid echoes of past conversation bounce from the walls of my skull just as they had reverberated through those same rooms. The thin netting that hangs from the balcony door to our room billows in the wind; a gesture that looks like a welcome or a farewell and I still haven't decided which of those  _ this  _ is. But the danger is I am beginning to take root and it's no surprise given the fertile nature of my surroundings, soon my ability to make a decision will evaporate into the heat haze. 

But would you even accept it now? What I have become, what I am now as the years have passed us by and the crumbling foundations that lay elsewhere? I want to hope that you don’t care, that our artifacts can be salvaged from the deep; mended, loved and preserved. That this wasn't lost or remembered wrong. Now who is unsure? Can you read me now like I could then? 

I have to question what I thought I was looking for coming here. A reprieve? A long overdue vacation? It is none of that and I can’t lie to myself any better than I can lie to you. I arrived and it felt like my life had been a long and winding journey home. Stepping from the cab was like scraping the travel dust from my boots on a doormat proclaiming in large dark print that this was my belonging. I felt the relief that comes at the end of a long commute setting my bag down in this place. How can I turn around now? But I knew it would be like this, it's why I resisted. 

It's bigger than you or me and it's smaller than the blades of grass beneath my palms. I raise my hands, up turning them to study the grains of dirt and stones that are pressed into my skin. It looks like the universe and my flesh is dark matter. What if these grains do hold entire universes within them, made of souls that are born once every generation only to go on a journey of terrifying existence to find their counterpoint in another soul? What happens when I brush my palms clean? What if our universe is a molecule that is on a kitchen table in another world? If someone wiped it clean, do we cease to be? Perhaps life is that fickle and fragile. 

I know I am more than lucky to be able to return and find you here. I’m brought back to the sentiment that I never deserved to find you, and that you never deserved for me to keep you in this state, in this coma. I hate myself that I could inflict that on you. Years and years, you have preserved this thing. Did you know that was what you were doing? The most caring curator of life. It is the most beautifully sorrowful thing I have ever known, read  _ or  _ heard. Could I make it up to you? Would you let me? 

I'm still staring at my hands, unable to bring myself to wipe them clean and forsake more souls when I realise your bare feet are inches away from my toes, poking from my sandals; one last barrier between me and this place. You're squatting down and I have no idea how long you’ve been there. And I can't look up, I can't look at you for the fear that you'll see madness in the thoughts that will be crystalline to you. I can see the impressive shadow you cast, it's long now as the sun begins to dip behind tall fingers of green that make a futile reach for the heavens, little do the poplars know their roots are already woven into their destination. 

You don't say a word but I don't need them. My eyes rest on your hands, one folded over the other as your elbows sit atop your knees, and I wonder about all the things they have done in my absence, all the plans they have crafted and the letters they have penned, the life they have cared for, the fruit they have nurtured, the skin they have touched. I wish I could read them and they would satisfy my hunger to read  _ you _ , to know all of you and what you do and have done. I want to converse with the soles of your feet so they can tell me in great detail the miles they have walked and the earth that they have found, the nights they danced without me to see. I want to whisper into your neck and ask the skin just how much blood has rushed through your veins since my mouth was last there. 

I should have looked up at you because any way that I might have disguised this madness is no longer an option. I have sat here too long whilst you watch me, hands upturned and dirty and silent. Have you seen me like this before? No, you haven’t. I have been this way before but I never showed it to you. Maybe you didn’t need to see it to know.

“Oliver, are you ok?” And there it is, you have spent so long here that you say that word the way the others used to;  _ Ulliva.  _ But I don’t answer you because that’s not my name, not from your mouth, and you know it. You figure it out and snort a laugh before the palm of your hand hits the ground and you’re sliding across the gravel until you are sat next to me. “What’s wrong?” And I wait to answer because what kind of question is that, why are you asking when you know what’s wrong? You know exactly what is wrong. But you wait and you wait and there is a stillness, there’s no distant sound of the ocean because the tide must be out, nor the song of the cicadas because they all must be listening, the chirping of grasshoppers is absent because they must have decided to give us our privacy. The world wants me to answer. Fate wants me to answer.  _ You  _ want me to answer. 

“I’m tired.” It’s a loaded two words, I know. But where do I begin, Elio?

“ _ You’re _ tired?” you say, your tone is half mimicking me they way you used to and half exasperated. I would laugh,  _ I would _ , it strains my chest to hold it in but I know if I let it go, when my mirth softens, tears will come. Tears that have been waiting since the train pulled away and I don’t think they will stop. I would nourish this parched part of earth better than ashes ever could.

“I’m tired,” I repeat. I don’t know if I can elaborate more than that. Not now. Do you understand? Of course you do and still you will misjudge what I am asking for. You blow the air out of your mouth and I can see your head turning as you search the horizon for some hint of where you will find the strength you suppose you are going to need. When your lungs are empty, your lips make a popping noise as you begin to feel the discomfort you assume I am placing on you. I am not asking you to tell me to go, I am not asking you to list the expectations placed on my head, I’m not asking you to be strong for me. But you think that’s what I need and you are preparing to give me that because you are Elio and you are incredible. So much more than I. And after all this cruelty, it's easy to expect another cruel measure from me.

“I don't need you to say anything.” I want to bring my hands up to my face so I can claw at my skin, pull this disguise from me that I've worn too long and which has no place here, with you. But I can't bring myself to extinguish the souls that might exist on my palms. I stare at my hands trying to figure out this conundrum. And now you sigh. You sigh and it's something fond, as you turn to me you cross your legs and there is no difference between the Elio staring into the side of my face right now and the one I would steal glances at across the breakfast table and yet I  _ still _ can't look at you. You take my left hand in your lap, your palm runs across mine and I close my eyes as you wipe the fears away for me. The fears that I will waste more souls, more hours, more  _ love _ . How do you understand me? I find you have both my hands now, fingertips dislodge the small stones with so much care that if there is a world there I think you kept it whole. 

My hands are clean now but I don't take them back. Your hands are warm and I missed your touch, the softness of youth might not be there but in its place is confident experience. I feel safe and I realise for the first time that  _ I  _ needed somewhere to feel safe. 

“Your cab will be here soon.” Your words are tentative and unrushed as you study me with worrisome curiosity. I shake my head slowly. 

“So.” I say.

“So.” you repeat in a way that is also a question. 

“ _ So.”  _ and you hear that I mean “ _ and what of it?”  _ In that simple sound. Your hands tighten on mine reflexively. I'm not sure if you are aware of it, the rest of you stays impassive. Waiting. Waiting to breathe. 

I follow the lines of your face, your jawline, lips and proud nose. The years mean nothing, you're flushed with health and years of laughter and I missed all the punchlines. 

What do you see when you look at me, Elio? 

Then I find myself in your eyes, realising the game is up because I have looked at you now and my eyes feel dry from my inability to blink. You were freer and stronger than I, I know you thought the opposite. Now I can prove you wrong because the fact is I took my map and unfurled it, I finally came back to the X because there is nowhere else for me to belong. I belong with you. 

My grip tightens on your hands. There's only one thing I can say. 

“ _ Oliver _ .” I whisper. And the years are worth it and the separation, to have  _ this _ and to return and with one word cause love to bloom in your eyes, to see it seep into your face, to watch your lips part as a delicate and greedy need is fulfilled by one word and one word alone. We would have been so happy together with just simplicity, love and understanding for company, wouldn't we? And that's all we have now, so… 

I have to tell you that I can't go now, that I can't face to part anymore when you open your mouth to speak. 

“If you’re tired you should rest.” you say it so simply; a mother talking to their child, “If there's no rush, stay another night. Or two. The old room is yours.” and you know there's no rush, you know now why I came. And I love you in this moment more than I ever have, for you have so graciously saved me from my own excuses and explanations by extending your hospitality to me, no hesitation, no grudge. Yet I stand here empty handed and you still welcome me like a hero. I am no hero, that's you Elio, it's all you. 

“There’s no rush.” I'm surprised because my voice is hoarse and my throat is tight around the words. “A night.” I say but it's a question and one that we already know the answer to. It's not a night, it won't be a measurable amount of time and I can imagine the sun will rise a thousand times and more on fresh reasons why today is not the day that I need to go. You know that. You know me. 

One more night which means forever. 

An impending and devastating need fills me to open my chest and let words pour out, their way eased by my tears and expose everything that has been inside these years. I missed bearing the true skin of my form, do you still want it? You understand my torture, of course you do, and you make a shushing noise. 

_ You shushed me? _

“Then you stay, until you're ready.” I'll never be ready but you are being polite, courteous and unassuming despite the hope that I see spilling into you, I can feel it rushing beneath your skin. Your skin which is encased in mine now because my arms are around you. And I'm blinded by my own relief because you feel the same in my arms today as you did then; weightless. I can feel the quiet laugh of delight that's expelled from your body before your arms are around me. I am you now, I will be the one who leaves  _ my  _ door ajar and that pushes notes under  _ your  _ door. Will you come to me? You answer my question with your lips as they press to my neck. It's not a kiss, you’re feeling my pulse and it's better than a kiss. To want to feel my life against yours—one tender point to another—as I want to feel yours against mine . 

I push my face into your shoulder and at first I’m confused when I feel the material damp against my skin because I didn’t realise I was crying. It’s not the heavy downpour of a monsoon created by quick and erratic conditions, but the gentle flow of a mountain spring that has travelled for years through the primordial geological landscape to see release, to see the vivid blue sky at last. To be free. And I don’t feel like crumbling when I realise the tears are there, I feel stronger and lighter. I begin to feel like  _ myself _ . To feel like you.

“Our room.” I mutter into you.

“What?”

“You said  _ old  _ room _.  _ It’s  _ our  _ room _.”  _ I correct and you snort a soft sound of dry amusement. Looking over your shoulder, you cast your gaze at the home that is the epicentre of all things. 

“ _ Our room, he says _ .” as if you are saying it to your mother, too far away to hear your words but her eyes miss nothing as she reads by the window. I tug you closer as I laugh and you move easily in my hands, as you always did. Still, we kneel here in the dirt, amongst all the possible worlds that could exist, that we could have been born into, and the only thing that matters is Elio and Oliver and here and now. “If she didn’t know, she does now.” I close my eyes as your hair brushes against my cheek when your head returns to rest against my neck. I am alive. 

Despite your statement, you don’t pull away.

“ _ Oh _ , she knew.”

“You’re so sure?”

And it’s my turn to grunt a laugh into the cotton of your t-shirt. You never did grow up and I am glad for that. “You were pretty obvious.” I tease.

“I never was.” you slump back onto your haunches and push yourself away from me good naturedly, or perhaps it is to save yourself from my hands who have become at home on your body. I mirror your pose and we grin at each other like a couple of fools, which perhaps we are but I wouldn’t want for anything else. Our smiles soften into something that borders on dangerous as we take in one another like it's the first time we've reunited since that train pulled away. 

“It doesn’t matter anyway.” I’m whispering because I’m mesmerised, both lost and found. And it really doesn’t matter, it is past that point where I care and I know you never did. Your lips move, fumbling for words because you feel the itch in your hands for me like I feel it for you. The air warms and thickens and the distance between us shrinks even as we sit still. I can feel my heart furiously beat the fluid that seems to have turned viscous and lazy in my veins and the reverberations from your own heart move through me. Time stills and here we are. 

_ Here we are _ . 

Are we too old to roll around in the grass, Elio? 

Once again you save us. “Come.” you say and, of course, I do. I don’t hesitate to stand and to brush the dirt from my knees but as I turn to follow, you freeze and turn back to me; remembering something critical that you just  _ have  _ to do. Your eyes travel down until they stop at my feet, dark eyebrows rise as if completely offended by what you are seeing. Placing your hand forward with it’s palm up, you wait. “Shoes.” you say and somehow I understand what this means. I toe off my sandals, bend and scoop them up whilst wincing at the grit that digs into my unpractised soles. I place them in your hands and you grin. You grin and it’s deliciously mischievous, you turn and as you do your arm makes an arch and my sandals are launched into the surrounding verdure; one is dangling from a branch and the other landed  _ God knows where _ .

For a moment I am stunned. Standing with my hands on my hips, I watch the one shoe hanging haphazardly for a second before a breeze stirs the branches and it tumbles into the bushes below. I can see neither now. You push against my shoulder to rouse me from my stupor before you turn and jog away, the sound of laughter shot over your shoulder makes the air vibrate with potential. You still move like a cat and I can’t help but grin after you. I find myself running to catch up, making a palimpsest of our footfalls. It appears I’m not so aged after all. 

You stop where I know you will, folding gracefully to sit on the edge of the pool you plunge your feet into the water. I drop down next to you with not quite as much finesse but as soon as I am beside you, you lean against me and rest your head on my shoulder. Your laugh is gentle as it winds down and it’s beautiful. _ You _ are beautiful. 

The sediment that I collected on the short journey here begins to wash from my feet as I dangle them next to yours. It feels like rebirth. It’s a shock to me when the world explodes into action again and there are birds and insects and running water all fighting to be heard above the din they make, I can sense it all so graphically.

“At least it’s not as cold as the water at the berm,” I muse into the comfortable break in conversation. Really it’s an excuse to warn you that I am about to find you in the water. My foot hooks around yours and for a moment you tense before your lungs expel air and your muscles soften, you let my calves wrap around your own with a small shake of your head. My toes begin to play that game you started so long ago.

“Don’t tell me this is too cool for you,”

“Well, no, it's just the evening air.” 

You snort. “Old man.” 

“I feel like my virility is being challenged.” but you press into me a little harder, for reassurance or to give me warmth. Or both. And you hum, ignoring the tangent this conversation seems to be heading. Perhaps we aren't ready to speak of those things yet. 

But speak we do, while the sky turns to orange and then red before finally becoming a dark ink that spreads rapidly; the deity writing an account of the day. And we talk of things inconsequential and completely necessary. How many years to catch up on the small talk? We speak whilst the sound of tires approaches the house, and our flow of words are not disturbed as I hear your mother's oddly familiar footsteps travel the grounds before wheels begin to crunch gravel again as the cab is dismissed. It seems the world is rooting for us right now. I hope its understanding nature sparks a pandemic.

And so we find ourselves sprawled underneath the stars, the water became too cool for even you. Reserve is shaken free and fingers twine together, my thumb strokes over a vein that runs down the back of your hand. There was a moment you nudged into me, your nose so close to me it glanced against my cheek and I had almost discounted my memory of the electricity that's passed between us when we touch like this. But you came no further, almost surprised yourself at how close we were. 

I didn't imagine it did I, Elio? You're intent? 

“You must be hungry.” you say the words reluctantly, aware that we should nourish ourselves on something other than good conversation but reluctant to leave this twilit reverie, as am I. However, my own gut gives me away.

“Maybe.” I lie and you laugh, turning to bring a hand to rub over my stomach. 

“ _ Maybe _ ,” you're still laughing when you prop yourself up on an elbow. “I won't let him neglect you.” and you speak with your eyes directed at my navel before shaking your head and tsking me. “Denying yourself seems to be your favourite dish.” I'd laugh but it's all too painfully accurate. How hard is it to break a habit of a lifetime? 

“Perhaps it is,” I reply, I've shifted to mirror your pose and your palm glides around my waist as I turn my body towards you, like the arm on a record player. When I’m still and only inches from your form, your hand firms against my spine and I swear I can hear the music begin to play as needle presses to vinyl. My eyes are locked to yours, there is nowhere else to be and there is nowhere else to look. “But did you know that taste buds change over time?” You cock your head and quirk an eyebrow, of course you know that. You mouth opens to say something but the words die in your throat as my index finger pokes at your navel. My middle finger lands just above the first and I begin to walk my fingertips slowly up your chest.

“What do you want then?” you ask after you’ve swallowed the tension that balled in your throat. 

“First: soft boiled eggs.” and I can't help but laugh as you look at me like I might have gone completely mad. My fingers have scaled your body and my thumb now follows the curve of your ear. You shiver like the ripples on the sea when the heavens open, but you don't pull away, you stay there. You absorb me. 

“Eggs?” I nod. “For dinner?” I nod again.

“Yes. Eggs for dinner. But  _ you _ have to serve mine.” a second passes as you gage how serious I am but my thumb disrupts the amusement that is quickly dawning on your features by unearthing a sweet spot on your neck. I’ll never forget where they are hidden, those places that make your pulse quicken. They are all marked on my map.

_ “Me have to serve them?”  _ you try to sound indignant but it's broken by an exerted breath. 

I hum in confirmation. “I haven't had soft boiled eggs since the last time you served them for me.” 

Your lips are parted as you scramble to put together noises to make a word and respond. My thumb runs across your lower lip and I'm rapt in my study of your eyes. 

I want to kiss you Elio, will you let me? 

“But then I want you.  _ Just _ you,” you can see my intention and your eyes nearly close, relaxing to the possibilities that have been, until this point, cordoned off in a forbidden area. Untouched for so many years to save your hopes being dashed on the rocks, again and again. But before your lids have pressed shut, you remember yourself. Wide eyes stare at me as you place a hand firmly to my chest to stall me. 

“If you stop,” and I can taste the fear now, is it mine or yours? “you'll kill me.” your ragged words are desperate and they rip through my heart. I could almost halt at them, horrified at myself to pull them from you, so genuine and literal in their nature and they always were. Part of me wants to run away because the guilt of having held you hostage is so immense, so unfair. But there's nowhere to run to now. I don't want to hide anymore from the pain that I need to tend to within you. If I'm not here with you then I'll die. 

_ I've been dying without you _ .  

“I won't. I'll never stop.” and I can't and I won't and I'll prove it to you, if you'll let me. Please let me? 

I move closer. This isn't a halfway kiss, the footwork is mine alone. My chest bumps against yours, like two ships meeting in the night and swaying in the calm after the storm we thought would never end, their hulls gently collide as their anchors are set down together in their tranquil seclusion. I pause, my lips brush over yours. Your palm is no longer flat on my chest, a handful of my shirt is gripped tight in your fist. 

_ “Oliver, Oliver, Oliver.”  _ my praise is hushed and only for you. You hesitate, eyes searching my face like you have woken under a new blanket of stars and you're  search for the constellations that you know to get your bearing. You don't need to though, you know this universe because you made it. The light of the moon and the stars are reflected off tears of your own, that silver illumination points out my destination. Oh, we will laugh and we will cry and we will talk, but right now I need to kiss you. I want to rediscover your taste, your texture, your tone, I want to drown in it. In you. 

Your fingers comb through my hair, just how I remember and I make a wordless plea against your mouth. 

_ Call me by your name, Elio, please. _

Your nose nudges against mine and now I know you're quietly pleased at the desire you can read so easily in me. Your lips tease at my own before they curve into a smile and you give your answer.

_ “Elio.”  _

Because twenty years ago is yesterday, and today will join yesterday soon. The time has rushed by us and I won’t let the sand fall through my fingers, not anymore. And from the moment my lips land softly home upon you, until I take your breath and you take mine—out here on the grass  _ just  _ like yesterday—I am twenty four and you are seventeen. 


	2. When Ships Meet in the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I open my mouth but the words come to an abrupt halt as a generous and cold raindrop lands on my forehead. I tip my chin up to the sky and I'm blessed with more droplets kissing my flesh. 
> 
> The rain held off until I stood right here with him. The tension snapped and the heavens themselves are crying in relief; the world was holding its breath too. 
> 
> Within a heart beat the gentle kisses turn furious and water streaks down my chest in flood rivers. I run fingers through my slick hair as I drop my gaze to find Oliver, facing me and looking as soaked as I am.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this looks familiar, you're probably not wrong. This was initially supposed to be fragments of a series, but it became more chaptered. So, instead of adding to the series, I thought I would make the original work (Cor cordium) a chaptered fic, making it easier for you guys to access and read. I am adding a new chapter now, and it will continue to switch POV's.
> 
> I hope you continue to enjoy!
> 
> Love, Becs

I'm not sure I can get used to the change within these walls. It was never solitary, how could it be with the neighbours and well wishers and dinner guests that I have inherited? There was always someone or something happening. But it all felt external. I could shut it out if I wished it, simply shut the door of my room and ignore it, knowing I would be left to my peace. Or if it came to it, I would pack a bag and travel for a week or a month or three.

This… _this_ is different. I can be in my most private refuge and still feel him here. I'm sure if I spun around three times with my eyes closed and stuck out my arm upon standing still, I would still manage to point out his exact location. I did—after one too many glasses of wine—do that very thing but I possessed not the courage nor conviction to test my hypothesis.

The itch in the back of my skull is a constant. It keeps my nerves on edge in a way I have not encountered in two decades. Part of me is reluctant to embrace it, I welcomed it so easily back then, awaited too eagerly and was left so bereft for the lack of it. The lack of him. That space was never filled, I never found a replacement or a stand in that lasted long enough to fool myself over. It was just me and this place and that all too vacant hole.

And now when I hear his footsteps I have to restrain myself from hiding. I want to hide lest I become comfortable with that presence again. He feels the edge to my nerves, he's soft around me and he does not push my boundaries and for that I am glad. More than glad. It's a lot to adjust to and I'm not sure if I will fully rearrange myself to this, whatever this is or is not.

The clock in my room seems to ring louder with every motion of that second hand, enough so that I'm wondering why the noise isn't bringing my mother in to question the infernal racket. It's been getting louder at night, since last week. Since he decided to stay. I have no idea what the time is despite the timepiece’s insistent want for recognition, all I know is I went to bed some time ago and here I lay. It must have been hours, I heard the rest of the bodies through the building wind up their tasks and shut their own bedroom doors. All but one…

That one door that has not closed all week and I’m starting to understand OCD because knowing it is cracked and the Oxford lamp is pooling a welcoming soft glow in the hallway is all but maddening. No, it _is_ maddening. This isn't the first time I've been tempted to throw my legs out of bed and storm down the hall to slam the door closed on its tempting invitation.

I push at the linens that cover me, it's too warm for them and I feel like I'm suffocating on heat and quiet and stillness. Perhaps the humidity is why I'm finding sleep difficult, it hasn’t rained all week and I can feel the tension building—the strain is too great and I am anticipating the inevitable fracture. I scowl at the ceiling as though it’s at fault for my insomnia but no matter how hard I try to shift the blame I know it’s one single element: _Him._

Oh, since he has been here we have done normal things. We have walked and talked and laughed like normal people, but I shy away when he asks a leading question or makes a comment that begs clarification. My tongue is tired from fighting my brain all day, trying to answer in clarity or to sift through his words to find the meanings within. I yearn to show him everything so simply and clean, to disrobe the years and unfold them. But what if this is a figment of my imagination? No—worse still—what if it's real but the same hour I bare all, a cab rolls up the gravel drive and I hear the seemingly inevitable and eternally confounding _Later!_

When this was my imagination— _my fantasies_ —I was ruler there. I could say if it ended and when and how. I chose my words and said them clearly with no doubt in the sky above my head that this was what I meant and it would be so. If this is real, I have no power other than to be honest and to follow my urges and twenty years haven’t changed those, not even by the smallest fraction. And I fear the way I will react to his truths, would I feel disappointment at what brought his feet to my door? Would it change the way he appears in my memories? I'm not sure if I will ever be ready to change the way I wish to see him. He’d come back as the dream remembered, and I'm desperately grasping at that.

He kissed me. On the grass and under the moon and my lips trembled as they were comforted. He kissed me and it was sealing a pact that I did not know the small print of. Questions keep forming in my throat like _So, when do you have to go back?_ Or _Hey, what's the plan?_ but they turn to empty breaths as I worry the answers. If I'm told _Oh I leave in a week_ —or two or three—it won't matter, the time glass would have been placed firmly on the table of affairs and I will be hard pressed to think about anything other than those white grains and estimate how many are still left before… _what_ exactly? That I don't know. And if I'm told of a plan, what if it's caution or—worse still—friendly? What if the kiss was simply a symbol of some significance that I am ignorant of and we will continue being distant acquaintances?

I can sit for hours and prove and disprove my assumptions but nothing brings me closer to knowing. The only thing I have left is to ask. To speak.

I grab a pillow and pull it onto my face in a futile effort to stop that spiralling memory. Did I even speak back then or did he? Part of me wants him to be gone tomorrow to put a stop to this incessant fretting, my nerves feel strung out and scrubbed until gossamer thin. And I don't dare engage the larger portion of me that hopes. Those bubbles of optimism seem to double by the day after the nights of wishing him gone have passed only to be denied by his wide and bright grin when I stumble down for breakfast. The bubbles are quickly reaching the lip of the tub, they will overflow soon, and then what will I do to mop up the mess?

I bet _he_ doesn't have problems sleeping.

There's no adjoining balcony now, just a wide and wooden walkway in the shape of the hall. Any bravery that shuffles the bare soles of our feet across the tread worn passage will be proclaimed to the ever watching eyes of the ancient artwork and the omnipresent nature of this family alike. The procession is a daunting one, I've envisioned it every single night since he kissed me. Would it be him or I that embarks on the endeavour? It should be him by all rights.

Then again, he came here; flew and drove and walked. He made that first movement towards whatever shape he thinks this will form. I know he is waiting for me to define the boundaries whilst showing his are wide open with that three inch gap left undefended in the wilderness of night. I know what he is doing is the right thing, _I know_ , but it doesn't stop the want for him to push harder against my currently indecisive mass.

It's getting too much now, each moment is another footstep and handhold up a mountain, the air thins and my strength melts under the light reflected from the pure white of the peaks. My eyes squint in that beautiful blaze, not sure if what I'm seeing is real or an afterimage from years past. And with every grip of rock my fingers struggle to find and cling to, the fear of the drop makes every heartbeat jolt pain into my blood, shooting a long learned lesson through my body with a fevered urgency—that I'm much too high, that this is much too dangerous, that I can't do this…

I thought I was done with these dilemmas. I'm too old for this. My mother, on the other hand, seems to disagree. Oliver's arrival brought through a fresh and nourishing breeze, it has rearranged the dust and brings life remembered back to her. Her quick and knowing smiles seem to follow us both, entertained—I'm sure—by a game brought down from the shelves and played anew, except no one can quite remember the rules so we are making it up as we go along and she is keeping score. I want to ask her who is winning when I hear childlike giggles that are barely contained by an elegant hand. I already know she will shake her head with faux ignorance whilst she thumbs through a book with idle speed and flicks her cigarette ash into the tray that is her loyal companion. I also know that if I open my mouth, petulance of youth will flow too freely and those small snickers will turn into a gale between being told to pull up socks that I don't wear and do something _useful_ with my time. _Like what, Mother?_ I would ask and I can see her thin eyebrow rise—a provocative notion that needs no verbalisation—so clearly in my mind’s eye that it is almost as if the conversation had occurred.

I'm sure _she_ knows exactly what Oliver's plans are. They talk for hours on end, pouring over the old and the new with a familiarity that never ceased. I'm _also_ sure that my mother has told him just as much about _my_ own life. Those conversations transpire when I clam up and make an excuse about something _useful_ I forgot to do so as to avoid whatever inevitable designs my life will take through these questions and those words and this information. So really, who do I have to blame for that? I can barely justify the irritation I feel for these treaties that are met and debated without my presence. And I know it makes things worse because here I am, sweating the fine details when I don't even know the location of those fresh manuscripts.

I move to turn, take my frustration out on the mattress or by thumping my foot against the wooden frame of the bed (I tell myself it is simply keeping time with the clock but I know it's a morse code of distress for one particular pair of ears to hear) when I freeze. Was that a floorboard creaking? And a whispered curse? Who is that? But I know already. Immediately my heart takes over from the loud ticking and all I can hear is the blood pounding in my ears as I try to focus my eyes on the door. My mind was spinning and churning with my boundless thoughts but the knock on the door stills the needle in the compass like Oliver himself is magnetic north. The only light in my bedroom is spilling in from the open window, the pale glow that is wafting under my door from Oliver's room is stronger now.

“Who's that?” I grit my teeth at the fact I'm whispering, complicit in something that needs to be hushed. And I don't need to ask and he knows that too, no one else is going to be moving through the house at this time. Knuckles tap lightly twice on my door and I roll my eyes at the politeness of it all, despite my body tensing in apprehension. “Come.” I mutter. I'm shaking my head as the door inches open but I'm not quite sure who the current irritation is for: Oliver who seems to be attending to my angsty demands that he moves first, or myself for not swallowing my fear and taking the initiative. Either way my stomach begins to knot and twist like my innards are playing cat’s cradle with themselves. This would have been a lot easier if I had faced this like an adult from the very first serious conversation I was offered six days ago, instead of laughing it off and insisting we needed more wine—the special vintage from the cellar which requires me to leave the table, _apologies._

Blue eyes peer through the gap, I can't see the effervescent hue, just the natural light from the night sky shimmering there, my own private stars.

“Did I wake you?” his voice is low and deep and I frown at the goosebumps that trail my skin when the vibrations reach me. He knows I wasn't asleep because I can feel his grin.

“Yes.” I don't want to start the discussion of why I was awake at whatever godforsaken time this is. I realise perhaps too late that lying about it makes it even more novel to him, that I feel the necessity to hide my restlessness because it is a direct symptom of sleeping close to him. But still not close enough to bring relief.

“Do you want me to go?” it's a courteous enough sentence, or rather it would be if I couldn't taste the humour on his words as he sees through me. I sigh and grumble something about the hour and about the heat and about the cheese I ate before bed as I roll to my side and flick the switch on my side lamp. _Cheese_? What does anything have to do with cheese?

An amber glow fills the room, not quite bright enough to stun me after laying so long in the dark, staring at the ceiling.The first thing my eyes search out is the clock on the masterpiece. It's almost 3am.

“You're here,” I'm trying to sound nonplussed about the fact his foot is in my room for the first time but my heart is beating that jagged and flaring heat through me; sharp and exhilarating. “And I'm awake now so you may as well stay.” I pause, not quite sure what he intended past knocking on the door with his pussyfooting around me. What do I do? “Is something wrong?”

“No, I just couldn't sleep. I thought you might be awake.”

“Why would you think that?” It dawns on me that I kicked my sheets off and I was only sleeping in shorts in the first place. I look like a concubine awaiting their master. I grab at the covers to hastily cover my torso. He doesn't say anything but I can feel his cheeks aching to laugh as if they are my own. Not _at_ me but at my confounding actions and words.

“There was a thumping noise. Every night I hear it. I thought it might be you.”

“Oh.” and what more is there to say. My code was received and my face is heating at my actions being understood, on top of the lie I feel like a fool. “Sometimes I do that.”

“ _Sometimes_ .” He repeats and now I _can_ hear a softly smothered snicker.

“Well, if you're going to make fun of me-” I begin defensively, feeling all too vulnerable. I should have gone to his room. I should be the one on my feet. My words falter when he presents a pale palm.

“I'm not. Can I?” his hand drops to gesture the room and I nod, nervously anticipating what comes next. With every step into the room he takes, I shuffle closer to the wall.

“You can sit.” I say to put an end to his foot shifting and his roaming eyes, trying to decide on where to make himself comfortable. To be honest I haven't made this space a place for entertaining. There's a wooden desk chair that I'm sure doesn't look at all inviting and my guess is that Oliver wants to feel comfortable for whatever conversation he hopes is sparked at 3am. Sighing, I lay my hand on the mattress. “On the bed if you want.” And he was waiting for just that because as soon as it was spoken he plants himself down, the surface dips with his weight. I've left the blankets across the space between us, a subtle reminder of the last time he decided to lay in bed with me. On top of the sheets.

“I like your room.” He is wearing a white t shirt and dark shorts and I blink my eyes away from their not so subtle study of his back as he shoots a look over his shoulder at me.

“I never really bothered to make it homely. Just what I need when I'm here.”

“Just what you need.” he murmurs, he's examining the space between us with an expression between puzzlement and amusement. His hand begins to travel the divide, casually ironing flat the creases in the material but I'm staring at his advancing limb like it's a viper. “It wasn't a criticism.” he adds, my words filter through whatever thoughts are primary in his mind.

“I know.”

“Still on the defensive?” and I snort at the comment. Of course I am, why would that change? Especially now.

“No,” he grunts a laugh at my denial, “it's just bare; not all that welcoming.”

“Oh, I'm not sure about that.” he leans back on his palms for all the world on the edge of the pool, basking in the midday sun. How is he so relaxed? Always so comfortable in his own skin. But I'm not sure what he means, the most enticing thing in the room is the Persian rug. My papers and work litter the desk in a perfectly organised chaos and a towel dangles from the wardrobe door. Aside from that the decor and framed prints and photos are the same ones that hung on the walls before I moved to the larger suite. I thought about changing them but the faded wallpaper that contrasted against the protected section under the frames was enough of a deterrent for me to put the task off. I've had enough of painfully obvious and vacant holes in my life. I should have made this my space, I should have put down roots. Why didn't I? I'm a lodger in my own home.

Oliver's eyes come to rest on my face to derail my spiralling thoughts and drive home his meaning: _I_ make the space welcoming.

“Oh.” I'm starting to become frustrated with my lack of eloquence but I don't know what to say. I don't know how to start this. Instead, I nestle deeper into the pillow and divert my eyes to the bedside cabinet, studying the half glass of water there with a fierce intensity. My jaw feels cemented shut. I can feel him thinking and after a moment he moves up the mattress and lays down next to me, his face is now in my eyeline and he is grinning. Of course he's grinning.

“You grew more stubborn in your old age.” he's whispering and so close I can taste his breath as though his lips were on mine. My palms are sweating and I realise the linens are tightly gripped in my fists. I empty my lungs, remembering to breathe and with the air comes a derisive snort.

“I am not.” and my defensive tone couldn't prove him more right. “I'm just… this wasn't expected.”

“Me?”

“Yes, _you_.”

“Am I such a terrible guest?”

_Guest_ ? Is that what he is? I can't handle the directness of his gaze so I roll onto my back and try to find the swirling pattern in the ceiling plaster as interesting as it had been twenty minutes ago. His eyes are burning into my skull. “ _Am I such a terrible guest?”_ I repeat and he's laughing now, trying to curl closer to me. I snort again before I speak. “You spend a week here and you seem more at home than I am. _Guest._ ” and then I realise that's a part of my agitation: his belonging here seems more authentic than my own. He speaks easily to my mother and the guests, he remembers every step in our walks, every detail of our memories here seems to be clearer to him. He's settled as if he is inherent and yet I never was. How long is he going to take advantage of that ability this time? Ok, I admit it, I'm jealous but that's not new when it comes to us.

“Ok, not guest. Part of the _familia_.”

“Familia.” I murmur. What does that even mean? Which etymology is he referring to? My mind hurdles over the varying uses and meanings of the word and the implications of that one sound, one so easy to say.

His eyes begin to peel back my defenses, the emotion that lies deep is being coaxed to the surface. I can feel it in my stomach and my throat. It was always here, laying dormant. I never cut it out, it lived with me and was buried under the occupational layers of time and life. But it’s all there and well preserved. I can’t take the edge of this blade that wants to cut through my core anymore because at any moment I feel like my emotions can take several violent tangents: anger, sorrow, joy. “ _Familia.”_ I mutter again through gritted teeth as I turn on my side, face to the wall. I don’t know if I am ready for whatever lies beyond this point.

The move was a mistake and I realise that a little too late. Instead of shutting him out to delay the onslaught of my own reactions, I have offered him my most vulnerable side, the side that—if asked again—I would trust him with. I am caught between a rock and a hard place. The image of my mother quirking her eyebrow at the suggestion springs to mind. I’m sure this would amuse her.

I can feel his warmth against my body and an instinct in me could count down the handful of seconds it takes before he pulls flush to my own form. My eyes squeeze shut as his arm lays heavy around my waist, tugging me with care into the curve of his body—his body that always seemed to fit so effortlessly to my own. And now I feel ridiculous because I want to push against his force— _fight it_ —but at the same time I don't want him to stop. Like he promised.

“You want to spend forever in the unknown?” the warmth of his words stirs the hair at the nape of my neck and I can’t escape the shudder that ripples through me.

“If I don’t know then I can’t be disappointed.” and somehow I find words but I bring myself up short, my feet have clattered down the gangplank only to skid to a halt at the end, fearing the plunge beyond.

“But you can worry about the disappointment that may or may not arise?” and I hum in agreement. But it also means that I can console my imagined loss with the hopes and fantasies that it might not be lost at all, that I might get to keep this, that my twenty year vigil is not in vain. I’m in limbo between several possible lives and right now I _want_ to be unsure because I am scared of knowing and those other existences no longer being viable. But I’m tired— _so tired_ —of feelings swarming in my gut like a burst of butterflies; fear, pain, love, happiness, all mingling together. Something has to give.

“I can worry about a lot of things.” It’s vague but it's obvious by now that I’m finding it difficult to be direct. Like always.

“You want that?”

“I’m not sure I’ve known anything else.” and I feel his grip tighten around me; a reflex of guilt. But I don’t want his guilt like I never wanted the shame. It was and is too pure to be needlessly sullied by those pollutants.

There’s a silence now as he figures out what to say and I try to keep a tight leash on my self pity. I have been castaway so long I’ve forgotten how to set an anchor down or board an island or even recognise land— _if_ I even knew how to do those things in the first place. But I am well versed in my own lonely poetry that I scrawl endlessly into the wood of my vessel. He had dry land under his feet, what made him cast off? What brought him here? And now I’m returned to my need to _know_ but my rib cage clamps down on the burning questions. One has made its way past bone and cartilage to the tip of my tongue, dangling in the air, when Oliver begins.

“ _I_ don't want you to live like that.”

_Well if you don't want that, Oliver, then it must be so_ , I scowl and for the benefit of the wall alone.

“What if I do?” It's a preposterous notion but it's the principle that’s my point.

“You don't.”

“ _I don't?”_ and now he has the nerve to tell me what I want and do not want, like he knows me. My lips draw into a tight line as I concede—to myself at least—that he does know me. Better than anyone ever has. Or will.

_“_ No. You don't. Nobody wants to live like that. You're just used to it.”

“And you're suggesting that I get _un-used_ to it?” he hums approval at the notion and his mouth is so close to my neck I feel phantom kisses laced along my throat. I open my eyes to the wall, inches from my face to find I'm staring at an old drilled hole in the plaster, for some furnishing or frame belonging to a past generation. The aged wallpaper is frayed around the edges. _Vacant holes._ My resolve hardens at the reminder and he can feel my body stiffen again.

“You're so tense.” There's a tease in his voice and I panic at what I assume he intends next.

“ _Don't you dare_.” I'm far from in the mood to have his thumbs slipping around the knots that I have grown used to. Or scared of what they will manage to loosen. It would be all too easy for him to undo the sinew that threads me together.

He's laughing softly at the vehemence in my order as his fingers release their hold on me and the strings of my heart tighten.“My massage skills might have improved.” I turn swiftly to face him before he can begin to work his fingertips under the sheet that is the last divide between us. I'm frowning at him, my jaw is set and he's still smiling, pleased that I’ve given him ground by turning to him. It was a win-win for Oliver. Yet, as I stare back at him his expression turns earnest and sincere as he studies my face. I can feel the roughness around the edges being smoothed by the quiet between us in the few inches of no man's land.

“I'm sorry.” he's whispering again. I want to ask for what: his comfortable hands or for the last twenty years? It seems like an all encompassing apology and one that I don't want.

“You don't need to be.”

“And yet I am.”

I shrug at his words, “Well, you shouldn't.”

Oliver stares at me for a long moment, I feel like he's weighing and measuring my defiance. “You need to speak your mind to me.” His hand moves towards me and I surprise myself by not flinching away. Hair is stroked behind my ear and then his fingers linger there before he takes them back. My skin feels on fire where he’s touched me.

“I don't know what you mean.” It's astonishing how easy the lies keep appearing in my mouth. But it's so easy to want to avoid the constant buzz of internal conflict when the heat of his touch is spreading through me like wildfire, my traitorous body so readily responding to his fingerprints. It would irritate me but I can see the same raging desire reflected in his eyes. He inches closer to me until the tip of his nose is almost touching my own and the sigh he lets out is one of complete contentment. I'd probably make the same sound but I've forgotten how to breathe. The tips of his fingers begin to make a slow dance down my arm as my fists continue to bunch cotton in a vice and clasp it to my chest like a shield.

“Yes, you do.”

I try to swallow but my mouth is dry. There is no place to hide, not from him. “I don’t know where to start.” Honesty. It wasn’t that hard after all.

“Well, _that’s_ a start.”

I continue to stare at him silently because that’s no start at all, except for admitting that there indeed _must_ be one. But I’m sitting amongst coils of tangled rigging and I can’t tell him what the length of it is or where it is supposed to go because I can’t find the ends. _The start_. I can't find the beginning. But I am sure there is enough for me to hang myself with.

He feels my frantic thoughts and a palm sweeps up my spine, following the waves of my vertebrae and now I’m wishing the cotton wasn't between us. Everything softens and—as a cool breeze drifts through the open window—I sigh into him..

“I can help you.” he says before tipping his chin up and resting his lips on my forehead. Closing my eyes I wait for what he is going to say, what life line he can throw me as I'm neck deep in _everything_ and have successfully managed to tie myself in knots. But all he is doing is breathing me in, just as I am filling my lungs with him.

My fingers begin to loosen their grip as his hand settles on my nape, idly playing with the tips of my curls. Just as I am coming to peace with his body against mine and I start to consider simply falling asleep like this—despite the awkwardness that would resume in the morning—his chest stirs and his lips move from my skin. “I shouldn't have come.” His lips brush against me in a tender and loving contradiction to his words.

Hands unravel and his warmth pulls away, and I let the rigging slip through my fingers. The weight lifts from the mattress and the floorboards now creak in reverse to play out his hesitant withdrawal from my space. The door gently pulls shut as I’m left speechless and alone in a deathly still room.

The silent agony is shattered by my thoughts and emotions that rage anew, the tender scar tissue suddenly ripped wide open where I braved to show it. _He shouldn't have come? Tonight or at all? What did that even mean?_ I daren't move for the fear I will explode and my breath is haggard and heavy as I strain to control myself. I close my eyes tight and I'm imagining my procession to his room again. I can see it so clearly and this time it's not a timid creep. War drums sound as I approach that door and even the painted figures of antiquity avert their eyes from the untempered fury that boils beneath my skin.

It's not until I feel wood under my palm and the harsh snap of a door clattering against the wall in the otherwise silent household that I realise I didn't imagine it. There were no drum peels but my own feet thundering towards Oliver's room. There’s dry ground underfoot and I'm thrown off by my subconscious _awake_ walking.

But I only hesitate a second, he’d been at the balcony smoking and he's now shooting me a smile over his shoulder. Even my current state of undress doesn’t dissuade me of my reckoning. Planting my feet firmly inside the room I open my mouth to speak and the words come abnormally easily. _Too_ easy.

“You have no right.” my voice is clinging to my last thread of self control. “You can't just come into my room, get behind my defences and leave. What did that even mean? _I shouldn't have come?”_ and I do that childish voice in my fresh and petulant ire, his hand is by his mouth. _Is he covering his laughter?_ “At all? You regret coming, don't you? I should have known. Not what you expected. Too… too… _absurd_ if it's allowed? Which I don't even know if this is: _Allowed_. What are you doing here? What do you want?” All control is gone now and my voice is high and impassioned, everything is flooding from me at once and the torrent has left me breathless.

Oliver moves to a seat by the window and looks almost unperturbed by my assumptions. His silence only fuels my anger.

“Did everything disappear and you thought _I know an idiot that's got nothing to lose—_ Or give? I don't have anything for you to take, Oliver. Were you so scared of the loneliness you thought I'd be a better option than solitude? _Well_?” and with every word a new blow lands on him and I begin to see the cracks in his stoic facade. He expected this and now—as I stand here and let myself observe—I realise he coaxed this. This was Oliver’s way of helping. He knew this would come and yet accepted it, I can see the pain my words inflict and he’s absorbing it like it’s his due. I know it's not fair, I know these are assumptions but I left it too long and the pressure is realised in one scalding stream. But he knew this had to be resolved, he tried adult conversation and gentle intimacy, this was the last option. And don’t I feel like the child again.

“You know that's not how it is.” he offers softly but it's not good enough.

“No, Oliver, I don't know how it is. _That's_ the problem. I accepted it when you left, I wished you well, I came to see you and respected your family. After all that and I still didn't feel anger at you. But this… _now._ Now I'm angry. You're back so _why_? Why now? And for how long?” and I do stop myself, the biting words that want to explode from my mouth will wound us both because I fear he will see through this, that it won't be what he remembered and I will disappoint him. This was all an ill remembered dream that will leave a sour taste in his mouth. What if it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy if I speak it?

“It's not lost on me,” he leans forward now as I catch my breath, his elbows on his knees and resting his chin in his palm. “The things I know _you've_ lost because of us. Or never had. I know it and it hurts, endlessly.” he stops to scrub at his eyes. He's still cradling his face in his hands when he continues, his voice unsteady. “I've been dying without you, Elio.”

I shift from one foot to the other and my mouth is left open. My plethora of words and accusations have dried up in the intensity of Oliver’s candor. I'm shocked and not only at the vulnerability presented, this being the second time I’ve seen him like this in a week and these are the only two occasions I've _ever_ witnessed it in him at all; It contradicts everything I tell myself about what he is in my internal fury. But I'm also taken back by the directness of his words and the absolute truth behind them.

_We've been dying without each other._

I have to put my palm to the wall for strength because quite frankly I need it. “What happened?” my words are pained in the wake of my anger and his honesty. And I don't need to elaborate, it's the question he's been waiting to hear and the one that burned the hottest. Perhaps it isn't my business but I need to know.

I realise I've made my way to the dresser and I perch on the edge. It's the first time I've been in here since he's been back and it already looks like his space again. Different from before but his nonetheless. He has his own work out on the desk: books and loose sheets, his laptop is open but the screen is black. It's neater than before, the towel he used for his evening shower was hung to dry in the cooling heat of the day and now lies folded next to me on the wooden surface. He's been domesticated. I want to grin but I’m thrown off by the battered copy of _La Vita Nuova_ on his bedside table: Dante’s idyllic prose and poetry centered around a figure he met only twice. So we’ve moved on from the journey through Hell and Purgatory and I’ve guided him to heaven—Oliver’s very own Beatrice.

His sigh pulls me from my egotistical thoughts and I focus on him. “It had been disintegrating for a while and it finally fell apart after the boys left for college. We didn't fit neatly together anymore, like we were expected to. Being a father was an easy way to cover up the inconvenient truths. They took priority. When they were gone and it was just her and I...” He sits back and crosses his arms, looking at something unseen in the patterned wallpaper. “And I always knew... it always _felt_ different. A different way. _You_ were always the truth of me. Of my heart. I told you that.”

I have to resist the pull towards the sweetness of his words, he did say that and I know it to be true despite the storms of doubt. “But you could live with it before, what changed?” But something _must_ have changed, that he now had to come back. Was it after things disintegrated—as he put it—or before? I ask myself how much that really matters.

“Everything and nothing at all.”

I frown at his words before it starts to make sense. The years have changed, lengthened and evolved. Priorities, expectations and the very world itself is a different place. And yet what is between us never altered, it’s the one solid factor that runs through the turbulent landscape of life.

I had noticed the subtleties: there seems to be no rudimentary phone call home, his lack of wedding band marks it's own vacant space, even as I stand here now I see his things have been packed away or hung and his empty case is slung to the back of the dusty reaches on top of the wardrobe. He's settling and my heart flutters. I had played those small morsels of information off as something innocent: perhaps his family are on holiday, perhaps he lost his ring, perhaps he just prefers things neat and tidy. The evidence is mounting that this isn't just an impulsive flight of fancy, this is somewhat permanent and to some degree premeditated. My imagination _isn't_ trying to run away with me.

“I'm sorry.” Even I'm confused by my apology. But I _am_ sorry, I always imagine him so sure and strong in his purposeful life. Maybe he could have had a happily _regular_ life if we hadn't met. How much is he losing being here? What are the risks? I never wanted him to pay for what transpired between us and I can't help but feel culpable for this upheaval.

He's staring at me now and I shake my head. I'm less sure of my emotions now than I have been all week. They flare and dance like sun spots on my heart. And now his blue eyes are on me, I feel that urge to rescue something. Rescue _him_ . The way I'd cleared the grit from his hands and thrown his sandals into the bushes last week. Did he know that was my way of saying he belongs here now? That he _should_ belong here. Does that make me selfish?

“ _You_ of all people have nothing to be sorry about.”

“And yet I am.” he smiles softly as I use his own words against him. A stillness settles between us, comfortable in each other's company but anxious at the hurdles still to cross. I clear my throat, gathering myself to plow on forward. “And do you have a plan? How long can you stay?” his smile doesn't falter he merely shrugs.

“I had no plan. I _think_ I must have known why I was coming. It's the first time I've set out unsure since…” his eyes scan the room as he calculates, “well, since I left you.” I nod slowly as he speaks. Oliver doesn't even have an idea of what happens next? I assumed he held all the cards and knew the hands being dealt. “I'm on sabbatical, they are fairly flexible with whatever it is I decide to do next. Come back or not, work from afar in a new role.” He makes a gesture with his hands as though to say it's an open book and the pages are blank from this point. “In fact it was encouraged that I take some time, I haven’t been myself and it was starting to show. I took it as the sign it was, the signs that keep pointing back to you.” I try to stop myself from drowning in the possibilities that rush me. I need to focus on the bullet points, the rest will arrange itself. I hope.

“And your expectations?” He looks at me now and he knows what I mean. “Of me.” I clarify to push him to the specifics that I desperately need now that I’ve started.

“I have no expectations. It's why there's no plan, I can't assume that you'll want anything to do with me past a fleeting moment every handful of years— _If that_.”

I'm not sure if this is the bit where I'm supposed to open up and say what I want or don't want from him. It's a foreign position that I find myself in, that I get to make a decision so defining. I can take the helm and steer us to whatever destination that I want. It's monumental and I can't bring myself to say anything: confirm or deny. I'm frozen by the magnitude of it all, the very fact my words will alter the course of his life. _Our lives_.

His face falls when I hold back and a sadness that I've never seen before settles around his eyes. He’s taken my silence as refusal. I want to reach out to him and smooth the pain away, with my fingers and words and yet I still can't move any part of me.

He pushes himself up from his chair and scrubs a hand through his hair, letting out a defeated sigh as he does so. “You don't need to say anything, Elio.” he paces for a moment and all I can do is watch with my heart in my throat. “I've already asked too much of you without the decency of speaking it. Too much for too long.” he shakes his head and I can feel his frustration at himself mounting. “Maybe I left it too long. Maybe it's not the same for you anymore. Maybe I'm a ghost you don't want haunting you. I have to accept that.” He looks around the room again, not quite sure where to put himself. The anguish is so sharp as I study him visualise everything falling to wreck and ruin in his mind's eye.

His hand extends to the desk and he slides a cigarette from the packet that’s sat there. He brandishes it in the air and then nods towards the balcony. “I need a smoke.” I stay silent and  watch him push through the net curtain until I’m left staring at his filmy image as he rests his hands on the rail.

Despite my blurred view of Oliver, I am starting to see him clearer than I ever had. He needed strength given to him, he’s struggled and has been treading water under the weight of us bearing down on his shoulders. He is probably better at compartmentalizing conflicting issues than I am, but he's not immune to what we share. As time has gone by it's needled its way into him further and further until it drove him here, to surrender and find emancipation. He needs me. The understanding reveals itself and I'm glad for the surface underneath my backside because my body threatens to give out all strength entirely.

_He needs me as much as I need him._

And here I am, sat like a sack of sand that keeps forgetting to breathe. I feel more comfortable in this space—which has only _just_ been reclaimed by Oliver—than I ever have in my own suite of many years. _He_ is my home.

Taking a deep breath, I push myself away from the dresser and make my way through to the balcony, pushing aside the silky divide with my palm. He looks back at me, his cigarette still between his fingers and unlit.

I open my mouth but the words come to an abrupt halt as a generous and cold raindrop lands on my forehead. I tip my chin up to the sky and I'm blessed with more droplets kissing my flesh. The rain held off until I stood right here with him. The tension snapped and the heavens themselves are crying in relief; the world was holding its breath too. Within a heart beat the gentle kisses turn furious and water streaks down my chest in flood rivers. I run fingers through my slick hair as I drop my gaze to find Oliver, facing me and looking as soaked as I am.

I can't stop the laughter that erupts from my chest and I don’t want to; sweet and beautiful alleviation. A sensation I never thought I’d be granted and didn’t know how much I needed. Pale blue and grey streak the sky to the west threatening the false dawn and a new day being baptised.

“You didn't wait too long and it isn’t different for me, nothing's changed here.” and I don’t just mean within me, I mean the very ground we are on. “And I can't get away from your ghost even if I wanted to. It's all around me: the pool, your rock, the berm, right here. _Always_.” he's grinning now and this time I mirror it. A couple of fools in love. Did we ever admit that? I don't think we needed to.

That dangerous quiet settles over us and our chests begin to rise like the tide. “I don’t think you’ll be able to smoke that now.” I say as my eyes flick down to his fingers still holding the cigarette which is almost broken in half with the rain water it’s absorbed. He doesn’t even look at his hand, the slender white stick falls to the ground as it’s forgotten and he takes a step towards me.

“I thought I'd killed it. Us.” Oliver blinks the rain from his eyes but otherwise he's completely unconcerned of the downpour or his soaked through clothes. The tracks of the rain down his cheeks look like tears and now I'm moving towards him because I can't bear the distance any longer.

And it's like I've never been away or he never left. My arms wrap around him and pull him into my body. I'm here with Oliver and we are alive. The soaked material sticks to our skin, my hands run smoothly over his flesh and it feels softer than the net curtains against my palms. The rain embalms us and, as we cling to each other for dear life and I feel his heart pound against my chest. We’re being born again. The waters of the womb, the quickening thud of life anew, the clinging of the embryonic sac and his arms that contract around me, leaving me breathless. But I don't need air I just need him.

“Mother will flay me with the rough side of her tongue if you catch a cold.” I'm murmuring into his neck. Just like last week, feeling his body beneath my lips is exhilarating. Everything I need to survive passes that barrier and I have been starved of this particular necessity too long.

Despite my warning, long moments pass before we separate long enough to step back into the dry, making pools where we place our feet. He throws a towel at my head and our laughter is light in this quiet space as I begin to towel dry my hair and chest. I have to wonder if I gave up on smiling altogether the way my cheeks are beginning to ache but my thoughts are cast adrift entirely when I hear the sound of wet clothing being peeled from skin. Of course he would change his shirt, it’s soaked. It’s logical. And yet I can't translate that to my body, as eager to respond to the scenario as it was earlier. Memories cascade through my mind of our clothing falling to the floor, or thrown this way and that. It seems like yesterday.

My hands slow their movements as I start to feel like I did in that _yesterday_ or yesteryear or those moments that seem defined more accurately and beautifully than anything else I've ever known. Irrational nerves and anxiety run through me like currents. I shouldn’t be nervous or anxious, I know why he’s here and I know he intends to stay. The finer details will sort themselves out. And yet still I can’t look at his face and my own is flushed. It seems so shocking how quickly into normalcy we have fallen. Our own brand of normalcy that is. The love never died—I think I always knew that—but now I can see it as the ember that I carried in my tinder box. Now it needs to be coaxed to a flame. Oliver can feel it, his smirk is reflected off my bare skin and it’s as warm as the fire I’m imagining.

“Am I offending you?” His tone is incredulous but his choice of words pull a snort of laughter from me. That day on the berm, except the roles are reversed.

“Maybe I should let you change. I need to get shorts.” There was the whole matter of sleep to attend to as well, although I can’t see that happening anytime soon whether I’m in my own bed or in his. It must already be past four becauseI can hear the sounds of early morning stirring from outside the open window, despite the rain still pummeling every available surface.

I try to move towards the door but Oliver is at the foot of the bed, I can’t get out without passing him. Do I want to go? I already know the answer to that.

“You can borrow something.” he offers, not making a move to stop my gradual edging towards the exit and I realise I’m disappointed that he doesn’t. I take another step.

“It’s fine, it’s just down the-” and my words die as a deft touch brushes down my arm. It does more than any forceful hold could ever do. Everything freezes except my eyes that climb his chest to find his earnest eyes.

“Stay with me, _please_?” And now I realise. He’d never asked anything from me before, never to do this or do that or to stay. He never felt he had the right. But now I needed him to ask me to stay with him, to be in the right, and he has. His gentle breath is teasing that ember to a golden glow.

And I’ve already begun the honesty so there’s no point in holding out now. “I don’t want to go. It’s old and new, remembered and forgotten. It’s _a lot_ . I’m just…” _Scared?_ That was never there before when I ran headlong into him; this week I have done everything I could to hide from everything. But with age comes our mortality complex. I’d survived this coma and been revived, the thought of gaining and losing it again is incomprehensible. Irreparable. Unforgivable. And with all other barriers overcome, there's nothing left standing in the way of our skin.

But he understands that with the calm patience that graces his features and the warm way his palm lays flat and tender on my arm. “I know. The footwork is all mine.”

I nod. What else can I say? He has all the answers that I’ve wanted so desperately to hear.

“I'll stay with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments, criticism and suggestions warmly welcomed! Also kudos if you enjoyed <3


	3. Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “A second life.” I’m whispering because it’s still impossible to comprehend the goodness within him. But his eyes drop to the book that he closes slowly and he looks unsure as his arm reaches out to return it to the table.
> 
> “I didn’t mean… not pretend you don’t have a family. That’s not what I meant.” And I know he didn’t mean that, of course he wouldn’t. When I am stunned by him he thinks there is fault within himself and I can’t stand to let happen. He begins to ebb away, and I imagine embarrassment beating through his veins at saying too much. My hand moves up to his face, cupping his cheek and stilling him there, willing the shame away. My touch is soft but its effect is immediate, he stops and his eyes return to my own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, we are back to an Oliver POV. Sorry it took me so long to update this, I had writers block for three whole weeks. 
> 
> Enjoy!   
> Becs <3

I've not slept yet and I don't need to. Light pours in from the open doors to the balcony because I tied the curtain back so we could watch the day reclaim the sky. Well, at the moment it’s Elio that watches the swirls of white cross the strip of visible blue; the rain stopped some time ago but the smell of nature’s replenishment fills the room. It’s fresh and it suits the clean white linens, the bare floorboards and his naked chest; the gentle rise and fall of which ensuring me that he is not just a mirage.

The song of the day has begun outside but there's still a quiet to it, stretching its limbs before starting that sprint until dusk. But I'm not interested in the world outside nor what’s dictated by which degree the earth is currently tilted towards or away from the sun. I'm engrossed by him as he lays next to me with his head tilted towards the light. I missed his profile and I want nothing more than to trace my finger down his nose, but we aren't quite there yet. We are both hesitant; I have little faith in my hands now and their ability to care for the precious things I long to caress and he is still caught between fear of my touch and complete submission to it. I want him to meet me touch for touch, watch my movements with hope that my body will envelop his, that my lips will find his. No—not hope— _know_ that they will return to him.

There are moments that take over and he understands my need for his strength and he gives it, not fully understanding how much power is within him. I want him to realise it and take his rightful place as the ruler of my heart and desire. But he will only see that from what I show him; being reserved is a quality that I'm all too acquainted with and it's only worsened with age. I have to use caution though, it's a delicate dance between a giddy headfirst plunge into the very thing I have dreamt about almost every night since we met and gaging when things are too fast and too much for Elio.

I turned my back as he redressed and I let him settle in bed first before I joined, finding a spot not too close and not too far. But he shifted closer to me, I'm not sure if he knew. A slow creep across the landscape of cotton, two magnets destined to attracted and collide.

I'm lying on my stomach, propped up on my elbows and he is on his back, a long and slender arm cast across my pillow whilst he's still, but thoughts dance vividly across his features. I can tell by the way he focuses on something and his eyes narrow, the way his lips curl at the corners ever so slightly, and how his nose wrinkles at some private joke. His rib cage moves with each breath and his skin kisses mine with every one of those movements. He's warm and I'm sure it has nothing to do with his temperature but the potential energy that buzzes within his body. A potential locked up and left far too long.

Then a sigh parts his lips and he turns back to me. The surprise that I am there and not just a fever dream breaks quicker this time on a scandalized laugh, a blush creeps up his chest and neck again and I wonder how many times I can make that happen. I want it to be a power I hold forever.

“Stop it.” he says. The hand that was dangling from the side of the bed reaches towards me to run through my hair. I close my eyes as his fingers tease against my scalp, the touch and his words are at odds. He doesn't want me to stop as much as I'm unwilling to obey. All too soon, he takes his hand back and I sigh a heavy release of desire and loss, even though he is right here with me.

“Stop what?” I ask, opening my eyes to find him studying me the way I had him.

“You know what.”

“I'm sure I don't.” but I'm grinning at him. I couldn't take my eyes off him if I tried. Or, indeed, if I wanted to. But now my gaze tracks down his neck, over the vein that pulses with wonderful life, across his chest that contains the greatest treasure the earth has to offer and along the arm that's extended under my nose.

His mythical skin is unblemished and creamy smooth, I know it and I _need_ it. I break my observant state and begin to trace my finger down his arm, following the muscle until I reach the joint and that tender, paper thin skin. I can feel the way his breath catches at my touch and—as I bend to kiss the skin I've caressed—the air rushes out of him like a flood. My mouth makes a slow path down that irresistible flesh and I watch his hand tighten its grip in the sheets, knuckles whitening with the strain of holding back, or holding on to his senses—I know I'm quickly losing my own because his reactions to my most delicate touch are addicting. I've never caused this effect on any other creature, just him. And I feel drunk on the way I know his head spins with it, a shared high. I react the same way simply from sharing the same room. He doesn't even need to touch me for my blood to turn to magma; heat already flares through my body desperately needing to share itself with him.  

Bowing, I press my forehead to his arm. But if this isn't heaven then I don't know what is. I have to restrain the adoration that threatens to burst from me; I won't move until he's ready and that is not now. I'm sure it isn't. How many days, weeks, or _months_ does it take to absolve this? Elio said there was nothing to forgive but there must be. There's a price to pay for my actions and I've had it too easy so far.

Warmth pools on my nape before his hand lands and I let out the air that was captive in my chest. His thumb and forefinger slide along the base of my skull, firm and reassuring. He gets so lost in his own battles he forgets wars rage within me. His omnipotent assumptions of my nature are becoming more human, which is a welcome epiphany. What isn't welcome is the guilt that I feel behind his fingertips. How do I erode that away?

“So,” and I turn to him when he speaks, there's concern in his eyes again but he's wearing that grin that has only recently been unearthed. “What's a divorce like?”

I snort a laugh and roll on to my back. It's his way— _I think_ —to cut through the moments that seem to stick with unsurety and trepidation that's too thick to brave wading into right now. To ground us in the reality that we can cope with. Either that or he's testing me or himself that what was said was correct, giving countless opportunities for the mistake to be rectified.

“Less messy than I expected. Things were… _frosty_ for a while once it was said out loud. But we were more or less on the same page. It wasn’t unexpected.” I don't know how much details he wants, the last time I spoke about my family it was visibly painful but it isn't something that will go away, it’s a part of me and will be a part of us. If _us_ is what Elio wants once he sees me for what I am.

I glance over to him looking pensive and examining the light fitting. I can't sense any pain, only his empathy unravelling my words. His parents stayed together until his father passed away, and his grandparents probably followed the same template too. Elio never married so divorce is foreign to him except in theory, despite it being more common than what the norm is for him. He is the one with uncommonly good role models. To live and love someone until the very end, _that_ is a rarity. A legend and one I hope I can be a part of.

“And the kids were less upset than I expected them to be. I think one of the first things that was asked was whether there would be _two_ birthdays.” It had been grasped too easily by everyone involved, it felt like there had been a general awareness that I was ignorant of. Perhaps I hadn’t done such a good job of covering up that lost feeling which had only grown over the years. Would they be surprised about where I am now? And what I want now? Do I even care?

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Do they get two birthdays?” And I can't help the laugh that he sparks in me where—with anyone else—I'd be guarded.

“They get more than enough.” I add. Which is true, I think they have already worked out how to get something out of one of us the other refused.

“That's such a dad answer.” he teases. But that’s also true, it is. And he approaches it with the zeal of a child, able to understand that greedy need under their questioning. My lips begin to curve as I imagine Elio indulging them but they falter before I manage a smile. The familiar hand of Fear grips my stomach in a cold vice when I dare entertain any future that may not happen. Especially one I long so desperately to live. There are just so many people to consider and their individual reactions and decisions. So many variables that I have no power over and that I can’t even predict.

“I guess it is.” I say, trying to break through my clouding doubts and worries. I grunt when he elbows me in the ribs. He can feel my silent and sombre musings.

“What was it like— _for you_?”

And I have to think about that because I rarely think about how I feel, I don’t remember feeling much of anything during the process. But this is the first time someone has asked me how _I_ felt about it. “The strangest thing was making my own way after that. I wasn't used to there not being a design to fit to. Or some expectation I had to fulfil. So, I got my own place and my own things....” I trail off, getting lost in my own words as my eyes follow the endless swirls of plaster that cover the ceiling. That really was the hardest part, regaining an identity and deciding what I would like: where and how. Decisions are mine alone but somehow no easier to make. It's why it took me so long to come.

“Your own place? For how long?” And I know exactly what he’s calculating, he’s trying to figure out if a delay meant hesitation— _uncertainty_. Either way he would try and anticipate the imagined ambush lurking, just so he could prepare for it and I can’t blame him for that.

“Since the New Year.”

“Six months?” He sounds surprised.

“Give or take.” he goes silent, trying to absorb the information. I have to remember honesty is my colour here, not that I would lie but I've never been completely open about my thought process with anyone. Things I want or desire are kept under lock and key; the fluid mantel that runs under the igneous crust. For as long as I can remember I have been what people expected and what they needed on the surface, all the while they were unaware of the contrast that resides in my core. “I wanted some time. I didn't know what was too much and what wasn't. Apparently there’s no handbook.” I shrug, there wasn’t, I looked. “I didn't want to get here and it look like I was just jumping ship. The time alone just sharpened my need. My _madness_ for you... but I couldn't just call.” How would that phone call have gone? It would have been a stammered half confession that made no sense. Or maybe it would have to him but I couldn't do that, not with the distance between us. I would have crumbled in my isolation when the phone was hung up, like the way I left him adrift when I called all those years ago. Maybe I deserved to feel like that.

“You could have.” he murmurs into the quiet between us. But he thinks more of me. He imagines I would have been calm and matter of fact and survived the silence and cold, listening to the sound that shrieks in the earpiece when the call is disconnected and being without him after speaking it out loud. That I need him. That I love him. I’ve never told him that.

“No, I needed to be here. To see you... and for you to see me. So you could refuse what I am now. What I've become. No rose tinted memories, just me.” And slowly he _is_ seeing me. The relief at being who I am and where I want to be almost sweeps me away in a tide of emotion every time I realise it. Does he know how much I need that? Even if he rejects me, just for him to know the truth of me would be a gift because he always held the capacity to understand me. I keep scraping layer after layer away and he hasn’t abandoned me yet. When I allow myself to be exposed he steps closer. His mind works to capture what lays before him, understand it and finally to accept it. It's more than I could have hoped for, far more than I merit.

My heart freezes as he moves to prop himself up on his elbow, his body presses to mine and for a moment I think his intention is to kiss me, to wrap his body around mine and I'm caught between surrender and stalling him. I want him to be sure of everything first and perhaps this is too soon. But whatever words are on my lips melt as his arm reaches across to the table, elegant fingers pluck the worn book from the place that it resides. He places it on my bare chest and I watch as he thumbs through the pages. I'm not sure whether he was looking for this passage or whether the pages fall apart at that particular section by sheer dumb luck. His lips curve into a smile and I'm entranced by him, laid upon as I am and used as a lectern. I know what he is going to say before he begins reciting the section in his perfect Italian and I don’t think I’ve ever been more in love with his mouth than I am in this moment. His eyes meet mine once the last words roll from his tongue and he waits. He’s testing me.

“ _In that book which is, my memory, on the first page, that is the chapter when, I first met you, appears the words, here begins a new life.”_ I repeat back to him and he grins, that understanding and connection never lessened its grip.

“Perhaps on a second meeting with intent we’re granted a second life.”

I stare at him because a second life is so much more than a second chance that it's not even comparable. A second chance means there was something to forgive, some wrong made. A second life means everything starts over, for us both. We get a redo with no hang ups. But how can he be sure? There's so much more to consider and discuss. Does he know all the unhappiness I might bring in the way of baggage? What if I'm not accepted and he spends his life trying to console me of that, further ingraining that guilt into his skin that never belonged on him in the first place? I can't do that to him. But I don't know how the chips will fall, it would be a leap of faith for us both except I don't want to let him fall again. I don’t want to disappoint him.

“A second life.” I’m whispering because it’s still impossible to comprehend the goodness within him. But his eyes drop to the book that he closes slowly and he looks unsure as his arm reaches out to return it to the table.

“I didn’t mean… not pretend you _don’t_ have a family. That’s not what I meant.” And I know he didn’t mean that, of course he wouldn’t. When I am stunned by him he thinks there is fault within himself and I can’t stand to let happen. He begins to ebb away, and I imagine embarrassment beating through his veins at saying too much. My hand moves up to his face, cupping his cheek and stilling him there, willing the shame away. My touch is soft but its effect is immediate, he stops and his eyes return to my own.

“I know,” and he breathes now, leaning into my touch. “I just don’t think that I warrant one.” He’s frowning and I want to laugh at his stern expression but it would be misplaced. The look that is directed at me turns incredulous, I can see the thoughts passing in front of his eyes like he is reading from an autocue but he stays silent.

His skin feels soft against my hand and his dark hair coils around my fingertips. I should say something to break the thickening tension in the handful of inches between us but I am just as lost as he is, except we are together. The only thing I can do is stroke my thumb over his cheek. I start to think about just how near or far he is from me. A few inches is nothing when it’s the tide coming in on parched sand but that same distance takes years for tectonic plates to travel. How far are we apart? How quickly can we come together? It’s only then that I realise that it doesn’t matter; if I am with him I’ll enjoy the journey nonetheless.

“You’re such a goose.” his words rush out of him and it breaks laughter free from my chest. There’s more to say, so much more to discuss but before I recover from the mirth that makes my belly ache with a delightful warmth, Elio’s skin begins to press down on mine as he covers me. I’m too weak to resist, not strong enough to do the right thing and wait until he knows. I’m sure he can’t know right now. But it’s Elio, my Achilles heel and his body belongs on mine. That physical distance closes quickly as my hand guides his face to my own.

It’s an eternity and it’s instant and then his lips find mine. He kisses me, a gentle pressure of his mouth bringing with it warmth and the taste of him: spring rain despite it being summer. He shifts over me, inch by intense inch. There's no hesitation, his body is simply enjoying the languid crawl over mine. Fingertips flow over my skin, finding the seams of my muscles and tracing them with so much care. He's mapping me, surveying me with precision. Now his face is framed in my hands and I'm holding onto the kiss and his life as if I'll die if he lets go. Because I know I will.

My heart beats no more than twice between that first contact and the synchronised tilt of our heads, my lips part to him as his kiss intensifies. There's an acute stab of relief, but that word is inept at describing the sensation of finally feeling Elio moving over me again. It's the sweetest pain, and I could whimper at the tears that want to come. I think I did whimper. How could I have left this so long? How did I leave _him_ so long? I feel unworthy and unfit but I've not enough honour to deny this.

I’m not surprised by the moan that slips free of my lips, passing it to him as I feel the slide of his tongue when he pushes into my mouth. These kisses that I could never forget. Never replicate. Never _compare_. He knows me—my mouth and my body—and he doesn't even know how well he does. He searches me, checking for changes and I let him. I _want_ him to, contrast all I am against what he remembers.

His palms are warm on my neck and his thumbs follow the line of my jaw. I feel an urgency to let my hands flow over him, they course down his neck and I can feel the beat of his heart furious against my skin. Another private message, codes sent back and forth and only he and I can decipher them. I understand the secrets buried inside of him just as he understands them in me; saplings surviving from a summer—long past—just looking for the nourishment from the sun to spread through us.

My fingers ghost over his chest to where that rhythm is strongest before I wrap my arms around his body, eliminating any space between us. He feeds me small measures of pleasure by the gentle sighs that leave his lips and all I can think about is hearing those soft breaths bloom into hearty groans released from the depths of him as I pay back that bliss with my hands and mouth and body.

I want to be gentle and I want to be slow, I should be passive to him and his needs. He should forge the way and I should follow in his footsteps. But there's a dizzying heat that surrounds me and my head in spinning. Before I even realise I have moved, my tongue is pushing back into his mouth and I'm hungry for his taste; I crave more of him. The cooling breeze moves the ancient branches, rustling the leaves of the trees outside before it drifts through the open door and dances across my bare back, it’s only then that I register I'm on top of him. I rolled us in my eager adoration of him and his fingers are tangled in my hair, holding to me like I held to him.

I can't stop the way my hands are sliding over his body and he’s fluid to my touch, muscles contract under my palms and goose-bumps signal the way in the Braille they create for the pads of my fingers. He feels exactly how I remember, exactly how I imagined, exactly how I _hoped_. Not just his form—always so strong and supple—but his reactions to me, the conscious and unconscious alike. Because it feels like I'm being welcomed home with every fibre of the being within my arms.

The kisses don't stop, I'm lost within him and—with every breath—need begins to take control. I find his hair, taking my time to comb through the strands. There's no rush here and I want to marvel at _every_ inch that Elio gives me grace to touch. My thumb brushes at the corner of his mouth as I take his lower lip between my teeth, relishing the gasp that he expels. The wetness that I collect from his lips is part him and part me, mingling together now in the grooves that swirl in my thumb print. Rivers of us that will never run dry. God I missed this, I missed him and this honest and loving lust that rivals everything else in existence.

Sure hands bring me back into his mouth, he's as eager as I am for this connection and it’s feverish. I'm sure I'm melting from the heat we create—that potential energy is released and running wild—before I discern its sweat that's layered between our flesh. At least we’re melting at the same speed. His arms wrap around my back and fingers dig fiercely into my shoulder. My tongue runs against his own and all I can think of is spring and dawn and second lives. I can feel the hidden parts of my soul that I’d tried to forget about. Why would I try to forget this? This is a heinous crime that I’ve committed, I _know_ and every moment more drives that thought home. Why am I allowed him again? By all rights I _shouldn't_ have this.

I pull back from Elio, resting my forehead against his. My breath is heavy and unsteady. I can feel the muscles in my arms tremble with strain as I rest over him. It’s the strain of everything that weighs me down; those components that inspire my instincts to escalate in their actions and the elements that hold me back. Desire, infatuation, shame, guilt—all waging a war within my body and I don't think I can cope with this delirious conflict.

My turmoil is interrupted by the tilt of his hips. I realise my eyes were closed so I open them to his: that deep green is almost eclipsed by black and they are staring straight into me. The need in his gaze is so strong I know I have no choice. I'll do what he wants, whatever that entails. His legs hook around me, drawing me closer and the grunt I make is echoed from his mouth, pressing together where the ecstasy is at its most intense. And now I know that his eyes correlate with his need, just as mine must.

I'm not sure if he said it or thought it but I could hear his voice in my head: _please, don't stop._ Before the words stop ringing out in my skull, my lips are on his neck and I run my tongue over his skin. Now I can taste the sea and my appetite is insatiable. His body moves underneath mine—flexing and softening—and I need all of him and I need him now. He tilts his chin up and I take the offering, laying kisses and bites along that vulnerable part of him. I feel the vibrations in his throat before soft groans fall from his mouth, it sounds like the soft thunder that signals a storm. I want to get lost in _his_ storm and watch him let go in all its devastating beauty.

My hand moves to grip his thigh just as his fingers tighten their hold in my hair, urging me on. I'm not thinking about the marks that I'm leaving on his skin as my mouth passes over him, I'm consumed by the swelling tide of his pleasure. The heat under my skin is unbearable, I need his waves to break on me and quell that inferno—if that's even possible. I need him to subdue and temper that yearning but I will only be satisfied for a moment before it builds again and I need more of him. And then where do we end up? Will we ever leave this room?

The palm of my hand edges a path down his thigh as my lips reaches his chest and I push open mouthed kisses into the flesh that covers his heart, leaving a trail on him that glistens in the radiant sunlight. His breathing is short and staggered now, anticipating where I'm daring to explore. But he should know _now_ there is nowhere I won't go for him. I can taste the rain on him too and it occurs to me that he must be of the water or the sea—a siren that I can't resist. And I don't care if I dash my vessel against the rocks, as long as I can swim in his depths and feel him breathe his life into me.

My thumb reaches the hem of his shorts to stroke the tender skin underneath and I use the instinct that's between us to feel his own name forming in his eloquent mouth. Once I hear that word—once he calls me _Elio_ in that heady tone—all reasoning will be lost and nothing will hold me back. Guilt and shame tossed aside like clothing on the shore in the midday heat that will _hopefully_ be forsaken when the swim is through.

But it's not to be. I feel his chest rise with the breath intended to speak that word but he never makes more than an attempt at the first letter.

“ _E-li-o! Ulliva!”_ the shrill cry carries up the stairwell. “ _If I have to call again, I'll send Mafalda up—with the rolling pin.”_ I can hear Annella’s soft laugh—now that I'm not _entirely_ consumed by the man beneath me—even as footsteps carry her back to the kitchen.

I snort my own mirth against him when he begins to un-tense from the initial shock of being interrupted by his mother.

“Is that how we get called for breakfast now?” I prop my chin on his chest and look up at him, grinning at the wild and dishevelled look that's shot back.

“She must have called before. I didn't hear, did you?” he's whispering like it's still a great conspiracy, as though his mother isn’t well aware of what’s going on. Everything about him and the way he reacts takes me right back to those first days together, and I can’t help the way it inflicts in me a mischievous bent of mind.

“I was preoccupied.” I smirk at him. And I was. If Annella hadn't been halfway up the stairs, interrupting when she did, it probably _would_ have taken Mafalda and her rolling-pin to get my attention. There's nothing to say that even then I would stop.

“We should go down.” But it’s half a question, he's suggesting that we ignore the summons and risk the odds of becoming exhibitionists.

And I make no move to leave my spot on top of him, a dragon protecting their horde of gold. “We should.” He hums in agreement, content with raking his fingers through my hair at a leisurely pace. I work my way back up his body at the same gait until I'm returned to his mouth; his grin is as wide as mine when I take another kiss from him. It’s as unhurried as his initial creep over me, I am testing to see how far we can push this until we are interrupted again. The air that’s puffed out in a soft huff of amusement across my cheek confirms Elio’s approval at the notion.

The fire isn't out, but it’s being moderated somehow, though it would only take one careless spark. With that in mind I try to ease back, but as soon as I have given him the smallest amount of leeway, his body pushes against my own, arms wrap around me and—before I can protest—I am on my back and his mouth is on my neck.

My resolve spirals and melts under his tongue as it drags over my skin. Hot kisses are spread over my chest and his breath flows over my body, awakening every inch as though I’ve been plunged head first into water cooler than Monet’s Berm simply because I’m anticipating the feeling of his lips on the parts of me that are yet to be reclaimed. And I feel like I haven’t been touched in twenty years. _Touch starved_. I’m famished for the lack of him and his soul _and_ his life next to mine.

I try to say something, I’m not quite sure _what_ but it definitely isn’t to ask him to stop. The world is forgotten again and I’m at the mercy to his light and precise touches. He’s writing glyphs into my skin, saying the things he fears with his body—for now at least. But when I relax my jaw, all I hear is my own heavy exhales; half words and groans that vibrate my whole body. They are the only thing I can summon. I’m sure I can feel the smirk on his lips press against my skin, he can remember how easy it is to disarm me with that clever mouth he possesses.

My fingers tangle in Elio’s hair as his exploration reaches my abdomen and I can’t stop watching him as those honest eyes stare right back. His nails glide over my tensed muscles, before the tips of his fingers find my shorts and slide around the waistband, teasing them down an inch. An inch that his tongue quickly traces, while one palm goes rogue to make a firm path up my inner thigh. I’ve forgotten how to breathe and I can’t move, I can’t even blink as painfully sweet hedonism takes over every one of my senses.

As lost and secure as I am under the weight of him, I’m still managing to berate myself for not saying something of worth. My tongue is useless whilst his own easily vanquishes any resistance left. I should tell him everything: how much he   means to me, how wonderfully unique he is, the countless ways I missed him, how many nights I laid awake calculating how long it was since I saw his face, felt his lips, devoured his body. There is so much to say, so much to confess. My words should adorn and clothe him but I can’t make my mouth work. And, as I think I might recover enough to prove I’m not in fact a mute, Elio’s palm glides over the thin material that covers the most telling part of my anatomy.

My head hits the pillow and all sense and restraint shatters with the blow. I’ve wanted him my entire life, I’ve missed this for an eternity and it _is_ real. It’s _here_ , it is touching me. I can’t hold back, I can’t say no. I’m his—all his—and he can do as he pleases with me. Everywhere is here and every when is now. This is exactly where I should be.

My thoughts stop spinning like a maelstrom and suddenly I’m breathing and he has stopped moving. My eyes open to find him sat on top of me, a grin spans from ear to ear. He looks victorious, atop his conquered forces upon the battlefield that is our bed. His fingers still dance playfully across my skin but I know what’s happening, I’m grinning too in anticipation.

“We’ll save _that_ for later.” And I’m laughing, my hands are on my face. Indeed, it is a game that we both love and slowly it’s coming back to us both.

“You,” I begin, “are—” and I try to sit up with the aim of grabbing him—holding him prisoner within my arms and showing him that he may have won this battle but the war is far from done—when footsteps on the stairs send him leaping from the bed, and my body, like a cat on a hot tin roof. Elio rushes for the door, but not before he grins back at me. The cat might be off that roof but it definitely found the cream.

What can I do but grin back at him? The love of my life and the centre of my universe. My purpose and meaning, if this is my dues for leaving him then I believe I’m a very blessed man.

“Later.” I smirk. It’s both a promise and a warning and he knows it. Either one is welcomed.

His footsteps bound down the hall, to his own room, I assume to cloth himself appropriately for breakfast. I listen to his footfalls, they work in tandem with the separate set that retreat down the stairs, I can hear tutting and I think its Mafalda. And somehow I’m disappointed I didn’t get to see that rolling pin.

Tangling myself in the sheets, I groan, trying to pull myself together and calm down enough to grace the breakfast table, and Annella, without embarrassing myself. Then I remember that I’m past the point of caring and I begin to wonder if Elio is still susceptible to nosebleeds from a game of footsie?

**Author's Note:**

> As always, criticism, comments and suggestions always welcome!
> 
> Please kudos or comment, it let's me know what I'm doing right and what I should be writing more of! Thanks Peaches ❤❤❤


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